Final justice - W.E.B. Griffin [78]
Jack Williamson looked up at Sergeant Haley.
"She is dead, right?"
"I'm afraid so."
They both could hear the growing scream of Officer Stone's patrol car approaching.
EIGHT
[ONE]
In the radio room--"room" doesn't do justice to the large area in which Police Radio is housed--in the Roundhouse, the radio operator who had taken Sergeant Haley's call then pressed a button on his console that automatically dialed the number of the desk man at the Northwest Detectives Division.
Detective units operate on what is known as "The Wheel." It's actually a roster of the names of the detectives on duty at the moment, and it's designed to equitably distribute the workload. In most detective divisions, there is a detective assigned to "man the desk." The "desk man" answers the telephone. When a job comes in, the desk man assigns it to the detective "next up" on the wheel.
When the phone rang in the Northwest Detectives Division, it was answered by Detective O. A. Lassiter, who was not the desk man but was filling in for Detective Len Ford, who was in the men's room "taking a personal," as a bathroom break is referred to on Police Radio. It also happened that Detective Lassiter was next up on the wheel.
Detective Lassiter was twenty-five years old, with 115 pounds distributed attractively around her five-foot-seven-inch frame. She had dark black hair, green eyes, long attractive legs, and had what her fellow detectives agreed-- privately, very privately--were a magnificent ass and bosom.
"This is Police Radio, operator number 178," the Police Radio operator began, then went into the details of the call he'd received from Sergeant Haley.
Detective Lassiter wrote them down on a lined tablet and finally said, "Okay, we got it," then raised her voice to call out to Lieutenant Fred C. Vincent, "Hey, Lieutenant, we got one."
"What kind of job is it, Lassiter?" Vincent asked.
"Homicide, possible rape, white female, twenty-three years old. Her brother found her inside her apartment, tied to the bed. He's still at the scene."
"You better take somebody with you," Vincent said. "I'll get over there as soon as I can."
"Yes, sir," Detective Lassiter said, and then, raising her voice, called out, "Charley, you loose enough to go with me?"
"What's the job?" Detective Charley Touma, a plump forty-four-year-old, asked.
"That's not an answer, Charley, that's another question," Lieutenant Vincent answered for Detective Lassiter.
"I am at your disposal, Detective Lassiter," Touma said. "What's the job?"
"Homicide, possible rape, young white female," Detective Lassiter said, as she opened the drawer of her desk, took from it her Glock 9-mm semiautomatic pistol, and slipped it into its holster.
Lieutenant Vincent was pleased that Detective Touma would be working with Detective Lassiter. Touma was a good man, a gentle man. The job was probably going to be messy, and although he knew he wasn't supposed to let feelings like this intrude in any way in official business, the truth was that Lieutenant Vincent looked upon Detective Lassiter as, if not a daughter, then as a little sister.
Immediately after talking to the desk man at Northwest Detectives, the Police Radio operator pushed the button that automatically dialed the number of the man on the desk in the Homicide Unit, which was, physically, almost directly under him in the Roundhouse.
Detective Joe D'Amata, a slightly built, natty, olive-skinned forty-year-old, who was next up on the Homicide wheel, answered the phone: "Homicide, D'Amata."
"This is Radio," the operator said, and then proceeded to repeat almost verbatim what he'd reported to Detective Lassiter at Northwest Detectives. And Detective D'Amata, as Detective Lassiter had done, carefully wrote everything down, then said, "Got it, thanks."
He looked around for Lieutenant Jason Washington and saw that he was in his office talking with--almost certainly telling him the way things worked--Sergeant